Hitherto, as recording media for information signals, there are provided optical disks such as CD (Compact Disk) or DVD (Digital Versatile Disk), and/or magneto optical disks such as MO (Magneto Optical Disk) or MD (mini Disk), etc., and there are used drive apparatuses using, as recording media, these disks and/or disk cartridges within which these disks are accommodated.
As the disk drive apparatuses of this kind, there are disk drive apparatuses of the type adapted to open the cover or the door provided at casing to directly load disk onto turn table faced therefrom, disk drive apparatuses adapted to mount disk with respect to disk tray which is inserted into the casing and is drawn therefrom in the horizontal direction so that disk is automatically loaded onto the turn table therewithin when the disk tray is drawn or pulled thereinto, and/or disk drive apparatuses of the type adapted for directly loading disk onto turn table provided at the disk tray. Disk drive apparatuses of any types all require operators (users) to perform such an operation to open or close the cover or the door, to insert or withdrawn the disk tray, and/or to load disk onto the turn table.
On the contrary, there are disk drive apparatuses of the so-called slot-in type adapted to only directly insert disk from disk insertion/withdrawal hole provided at the front surface of the casing into the apparatus so that the disk is automatically loaded onto the turn table. In such disk drive apparatuses, when disk is inserted from the disk insertion/withdrawl hole, there are performed a loading operation to rotate, while holding the disk between pair of guide rollers opposite to each other, these pair of guide rollers in directions opposite to each other to thereby draw or pull the disk which has been inserted from the disk insertion/withdrawal hole, and an eject operation to eject the disk from the disk insertion/withdrawal hole toward the outside of the casing.
Meanwhile, in mobile equipments, e.g., note type personal computer, etc. within which such a disk drive apparatus is mounted, further miniaturization, light weight and realization of thin structure are required. These is increased request for miniaturization, light weight and realization of thin structure of the disk drive apparatus followed thereby. Moreover, in recent years, there is strong demand for the disc drive apparatus of the slot-in type excellent in operability rather than disc drive apparatuses of the tray type which have been main current in personal computer, etc.
Since a pair of guide rollers for performing loading operation of the disk is longer than the diameter of the disk in the disk drive apparatuses of the slot-in type, size in the width direction of the entirety of the apparatus becomes large. Moreover, since the disc is caused to be held between a pair of guide rollers, the dimension (size) in the thickness direction also becomes large. For this reason, the conventional disk drive apparatuses of the slot-in type are very disadvantageous to miniaturization and/or realization of thin structure.
Particularly, disk drive apparatuses of the very thin type mounted within the note-type personal computer, etc. has the standard size in which the thickness is 12.7 mm. Further, in the case where realization of thin structure is made down to 9.5 mm which is the thickness equal to that of the hard disk drive (HDD), it very becomes difficult to use such guide roller as it is from a viewpoint of dimensions.
In view of the above, in the disk drive apparatus of the slot-in type, in order to respond to request such as miniaturization and/or realization of thin structure, there is proposed a disk drive apparatus in which plural rotational arms are disposed between disk which has been inserted from the disk insertion/withdrawal hole and base where a turn table on which the disk is loaded is attached to perform a loading operation to draw or pull the disk from the disk insertion/withdrawal hole into the casing while rotating these rotational arms within plane surface in parallel to the disk by using biasing member such as coil spring, etc. and an eject operation to eject the disk from the disk insertion/withdrawal hole toward the outside of the casing. As a disk drive apparatus of this kind, there is a disk drive apparatus described in the Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2002-117604 publication.